Van Cleef & Arpels, the French fine jewelry brand, has unveiled a captivating new chapter for its legendary Alhambra collection—jewelry designed to shape-shift with modern life.
The 2025 additions introduce transformable and reversible pieces that honour the maison's century-old passion for metamorphosis.
At the heart of the launch sits the Magic Alhambra transformable long necklace, a 15-motif marvel engineered to be worn three ways: as a sweeping sautoir, a doubled necklace, or, with its detachable four-motif section, wrapped around the wrist as a bracelet.
Priced from $35,000, the design features asymmetrically arranged motifs in guilloché rose or white gold, paired with luminous white and grey mother-of-pearl or the serene blue of chalcedony.
Then there are the Vintage Alhambra reversible rings—pieces that demand a second glance. One side reveals the silky glow of mother-of-pearl or chalcedony; flip the pivoting clover, and a pavé of diamonds catches the light. It is jewelry made for life's in-between moments: the lunch that stretches into evening, the day that ends somewhere between desk and dancefloor.
Completing the offerings is the Sweet Alhambra watch, where timekeeping becomes wearable art. Guilloché white gold, diamonds, and chalcedony motifs create a rhythm of shine and texture—a piece that makes you almost forget about the hours it measures.
Actually, this spirit of transformation is nothing new for Van Cleef & Arpels. An iconic example is its 1951 Zip necklace, a technical marvel that zips closed to become a bracelet, suggested in the late 1930s by the Duchess of Windsor and first completed around 1950. The 2025 Alhambra necklaces employ similarly ingenious English blade clasps, invisible behind the neck, preserving flawless elegance.
On the other hand, the Alhambra itself was born in 1968 when Jacques Arpels, who famously handed four-leaf clovers from his garden to employees, fused the lucky motif with the quatrefoil arches of Granada's Alhambra Palace. His credo—"To be lucky, you must believe in luck"—still pulses through every clover-shaped creation.
Each motif passes through more than ten meticulous stages, from stone selection to final polish, ensuring mirror-like perfection. It is craftsmanship that whispers rather than shouts. And that, perhaps, is the collection's quiet message: luck, like great design, doesn't announce itself. It simply arrives—perfectly balanced, endlessly adaptable, and utterly timeless.
